


Distort Meaning by Obscuring Sense

by shirawords



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bellamy speaks Tagalog, F/M, and also Spanish because he's like that, the gang's all here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-22 22:25:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13176480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shirawords/pseuds/shirawords
Summary: The thing Clarke regrets most about her life so far is that she took French in high school instead of Spanish.Okay, that might be a bit of an overstatement. But Bellamy speaks a fun mixture of Spanish and Tagalog, and she's like to be a little less lost when he insults her in a language she can't speak.*Title from Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem





	Distort Meaning by Obscuring Sense

The thing Clarke regrets most about her life so far is that she took French in high school instead of Spanish. 

Okay, that might be a bit of an overstatement. She regrets all the time she spent mad at Wells when it was her mother who hushed up her dad’s report on the volatile nuclear power plant that ended up killing 300 people in an explosion. She regrets the whole mess with Finn, and the whole mess with Lexa after that. She regrets trying to stick it out with pre-med for two years before switching to an art major. 

But she’s reconciled with Wells, figured it out with her mom, gained a best friend in Raven, and can give her friends shit when they get stupid injuries because of two years of biology classes in undergrad. She’s not sure if she got anything out of the debacle with Lexa, who was a little too intense and dropped her for Costia when her ex-girlfriend came back from a semester abroad, but she’s glad they’re happy together. All these other things she fucked up in her life turned out somewhat positively, and are way too deep to bring up during truth-or-dare or Kings, even if she’s really drunk. So the Spanish thing seems like a pretty safe bet.

Spanish is a widely spoken language in America, much more so than French. Even though Clarke lives in Boston, not the southwest, the Spanish-speaking population is still large. She was passed over for a job at the MFA because there was another candidate who was bilingual. She’s happy with her job at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, but still. It’s the principal of the thing.

At least, that’s what she tells people during truth-or-dare or Kings when they ask. The real reason she wishes she’d taken Spanish is because Bellamy speaks a fun mixture of Spanish and Tagalog as a result of his Filipino father, who died when he was 5, and his Spanish-speaking neighbor, who took him and Octavia in after his mother died when he was 16. Octavia doesn’t speak as much Tagalog, but she and Bellamy have whole conversations all the time that the rest of them can’t understand. Raven gets some of it, since she’s bilingual, but Clarke can only guess at things that sound like French cognates or the few simple words she’s picked up in Spanish by virtue of living in the world for 26 years. She’s annoyed about it. Wells is the only one who understands, since he was in the same high school French class as she was, and she complains to him a lot over Skype.

She’s chatting with Wells one Friday afternoon after work when Octavia bursts in to her living room, yelling at her phone. 

“—are you kidding me, it wasn’t a big deal--” she fires off a long string of words Clarke can't understand, but can guess are not complimentary. 

Raven looks up from the gaming system she’s rewiring. “What did you do now?” she says, wry.

“Nothing, I’m fine, tell this idiot,” Octavia exclaims, gesturing with her phone, “that I pay my own insurance and he can’t make me sell my bike, idiota!” The last word is all but shouted at her phone, and Clarke winces at the noise.

She listens for a few beats, then groans and throws her phone on the couch.

“What, exactly, is going on on your side of the Atlantic?” queries Wells, who’s in Senegal with Doctors Without Borders for another 4 months. 

Octavia circles around the couch to the armchair where Clarke is on her computer and perches on the armrest. “Hi, Wells!” she says cheerfully. 

“Hi, Octavia, how’s it going?” Wells responds, his voice slightly out of sync with his image on the screen.

“Pretty well, I got a new trainee at the gym this week, and Lincoln’s on a big order for a wedding, he’s letting me sample all his desserts, and I maybe fell a little bit off my motorcycle on Tuesday and Bell just found out about it and got mad for no reason.”

“On Tuesday! And you’re only telling me this now?” Clarke exclaims. “Are you ok? Have you gone to a doctor? I can take you to my mom’s clinic if you want, just to check—”

“This is exactly why I didn’t say anything!” Octavia responds, rolling her eyes. “I’m fine, I had my helmet, nothing’s broken or even sprained!”

“If you’re sure,” Clarke begins, and is promptly interrupted.

“You’re as bad as Bell, you’re such a mom friend,” Octavia snorts. She hops up, grabs her phone from the couch, and turns down the hall towards her room. “And don’t think you’re getting out of going out night tonight just because you’re actually 60 years old and boring!”

On screen, Wells coughs back a laugh. Clarke gives him a look.

“She’s not wrong, you always make excuses not to party,” he says, and Raven looks up from her gaming system again. 

“We can call you Abuela Clarke,” she says, “since you’re so old and boring.”

“I know what that one means,” Clarke responds. “Shut up.”

“Yeah, tais-toi, grand-mere,” Wells jokes. Clarke sticks her tongue out at him.

*

Clarke met Bellamy in the first class she went to at Tufts, a writing distribution requirement that he’d TA’ed. She remembered him as the hot, if a little distant, junior who gave timely feedback on papers and always held office hours. She got to know him for real the next semester when she took a Roman art history class because it looked interesting. It promptly became her favorite class, because she figured out how much she loved art, and because she got to argue with Bellamy for 50 minutes three times a week over the finer points of mosaics that she didn't even care that much about.

By the end of the semester, after a fateful group project with Harper that almost got them kicked out of the library, Clarke considered Bellamy one of her best friends. She met his sister Octavia, who was in the same freshman dorm as she was, figured out that Raven knew him as her rebound from the Finncident, and ended up with a solid friend group that remained strong even after graduation. 

They all ended up staying in Boston, and Clarke lives with Raven and Octavia two stops on the red line away from him and Miller. It’s great. 

*

She’s three drinks in when Bellamy shows up to the bar that night, scowling a little. He makes a beeline for Octavia, who’s playing pool with Raven while Japer provides tipsy commentary. 

“Is your leg okay, O? I know you said you were fine, but Lincoln said you had some trouble with the stairs at the gym earlier, and I don’t want you to strain anything,” he says, putting his hand on her shoulder.

“Oh my God, Bell, I’m fine,” Octavia responds.

He asks her something Clarke can't make out from across the room, much less understand, and she gives him a shove. “Yeah, yeah,” he says, and wanders over to where Clarke is sitting at the bar.

“It’s not fair,” Clarke says, waving her glass maybe a little dramatically.

“What’s not fair? That my alcohol tolerance is so much better than yours?” Bellamy shoots back.

“No it’s not, you’re a liar.” She sticks out her tongue. “It’s not fair that you and Octavia and, and sometimes Raven, you get to talk and we don’t understand. Like, how am I supposed to argue with you if I can’t understand what you’re saying?”

He snorts. “Have you considered just not arguing with me? I might be right.”

Clarke skewers him with a look, or at least she tries to. She might be a little drunk. “No, you’re wrong, and only Octavia and maybe Raven can correct you, but Octavia’s biased and Raven doesn’t care enough! How will you learn?”

Bellamy pats her shoulder fondly. “Calm down, mahal, I’m sure you’ll correct me enough in English.” 

“That’s not fair either! You can’t just insult me when I can’t insult you back properly!”

“I’m sure you’ll manage,” he says wryly. 

“I’m gonna remember this and get you back,” she warns. “When you’re least expecting it. Bam. A good French burn. You watch out.”

“Will do, mahal. Will do.”

*

On Monday, he does it again.

It’s Clarke’s lunch break, and she’s just realized she left her lunch at home. Obviously, the solution is to text Bellamy, who’s on break from teaching history for the summer and therefore has free time, to bring her a sandwich.

Clarke: bellamy pls save me

Bellamy: Save you from what? The inexorable passage of time? The unimportance of your life in the grand scheme of the universe? There are a lot of things to be worried about.

Clarke: from hunger u idiot i forgot my lunch

Bellamy: You forgot your lunch.  
Again.

Clarke: what do u mean again

Bellamy: You forgot your lunch last week and the week before that, mahal, this is a recurring theme.

Clarke: y do u have to kick me when im down  
pls bring me a sandwich or something  
i wont even yell at u for insulting me when i cant understand

Bellamy: Of course.  
See you in 15. 

*

When she thinks about it, Bellamy calls her that a lot. That night when they’re all at Monty and Jasper’s for board game night, she knocks over the careful configuration of props on their Settlers of Catan board and he says it while elbowing her to clean up. He does it again when she tears the hem of her sweater on a nail at work and has to bring it to him to mend, and again when she burns her spaghetti and has to call him to figure out what she did wrong.

She’s just finished her weekly Skype date with Wells, who signs off in French (which he’s actually using in Senegal), when she decides she’s had enough of her useless language. She closes the Skype window and opens up Google, typing “Tagalog insults” into her browser. She gets quite a list, and thinks she remembers Octavia yelling some of the words at Bellamy, but she can’t find the thing Bellamy calls her.

After perusing a couple of websites, she’s about to give up and assume it’s some sort of cultural thing she can’t find because it’s out of context, when she remembers he texted her about her lunch. She pulls up their text history, scrolls for a bit, and then types “mahal” into the Google bar.

The first couple results are about the Taj Mahal, but fourth down from the top is a Tagalog dictionary site, which she clicks on. The results are, to say the least, unexpected.

“Adj. dear, loved, darling  
V. magmaghal, mahalin (mag-:-in) to hold dear, to love,” reads the page.

Clarke’s mouth falls open. “Well, fuck,” she says to herself, and texts Octavia.

Clarke: is it weird if im into ur brother

Octavia: we all know ur into bell its fine  
y do u ask  
r u gonna ask him out??!!!!?!?!  
can i be there!!!??!

Clarke: no  
what  
nothings happening

Octavia: then y do u ask??!!?  
wait  
r u just figuring this out  
omg clarke cmon 

Clarke: shut up

Octavia: u looooove him  
clarke has a crruuuuussshhh  
clarkes gonna date my broootthherrr

Clarke: not if u keep that up i wont

Octavia: as long as im in the wedding party

*

The next day, Clarke’s on her way back from the corner store with a carton of eggs when she realizes she left her keys in the apartment. Both Raven and Octavia are out, and she’s stuck outside in the July heat with a dozen eggs and her phone. So she does the obvious thing and texts Bellamy.

Clarke: are eggs perishables

Bellamy: Yes?  
They go in the fridge.  
Have you been storing them elsewhere?  
Don’t do that. Throw away your non-fridge eggs and get new ones.

Clarke: i know they go in the fridge  
im locked out and i just got eggs  
and its hot out and idk when the roomies get home  
can i come to urs and use the fridge

Bellamy: Come on mahal, you’re better than this.  
But sure. See you soon.

On her way to the red line stop, Clarke reviews her options. Bellamy clearly doesn’t know she knows he’s been calling her “darling” for months, so she could just ignore it. It’s not like she knew she had feelings for him before this, she could just avoid the whole thing. She doesn't want to polarize the friend group or anything, or make him uncomfortable.

On the other hand, he’s the one who’s been calling her pet names when she does stupid shit instead of insulting her. It’s pretty clear where he stands.

Bellamy buzzes her into his building and shakes his head at her when he opens his door.

“How are your poor, non-refrigerated eggs?” he asks her.

“Shut up, I know how to store eggs,” she retorts, pushing past him into the kitchen.

“Maybe, but you still locked yourself out of your apartment, mahal,” he says across the room.

Clarke bites her lip, puts the eggs into the refrigerator, and goes for it.

“Right back at you, mahal,” she says.

She can practically hear Bellamy purse his lips from the other room. “Don’t say shit you don’t mean, I know you only speak French.”

“I mean it,” she says, careful.

“No you don’t,” he says, and she swears he sounds resigned.

“Yeah I do,” she replies, stepping back into the living room. “I looked it up.”

Bellamy freezes halfway out of his chair. Clarke crosses the living room to him, and he turns, face pale.

“I—I’m sorry, it’s not a big deal, I just—” he starts, standing the rest of the way up slowly.

“Calm down, you idiot, I said I meant it,” says Clarke fondly, stepping closer.

He lets out a breath. “You looked it up, huh?”

“Yep.”

“Google translate isn’t always accurate, you shouldn’t trust--”

“It means darling, right? Or something similar?” 

Bellamy bites his lip and rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah.”

“Then I definitely meant it,” Clarke smiles, and closes the small distance left between them.

Bellamy looks back up at her, still chewing on his lip. She puts her arms around his neck and pulls him into her.

“So you’re okay with me talking to you in Tagalog if it’s a compliment, but as soon as I start chatting with O, you get all annoyed?”

“Bellamy.”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

*

The next Monday, when they’re at Monty and Jasper’s for board games, Bellamy gets excited during Clue and knocks over his drink. 

“Mahal,” Clarke says with a grin, nudging him with her foot, and Octavia whips her head around from where she’s studiously losing to Lincoln at checkers. 

“Excuse me?” she says, sharp. “Did I miss something?”

Clarke looks at Bellamy, who shrugs and gets up to grab a napkin. “Guess the cat’s out of the bag,” he says, and pecks her on the lips on his way into the kitchen.

Jasper, who’s been watching from across the Clue board, yelps and pokes Monty, who's bent over a tower of Legos. “Get the spreadsheet! Get the spreadsheet!” he says excitedly, and Monty’s eyes go wide. Raven, the fourth member of the Clue game, rolls her eyes, but she’s hiding a grin. 

“Spreadsheet?” Clarke asks him.

“Yeah, um, we totally didn’t have a running bet over when you’d get together, because that would be wrong and bad, but just for curiosity’s sake, how long has this been a thing? Or wait, who made the first move? Because Miller might edge me out if it was you…”

Clarke laughs and gets up to meet Bellamy, who’s come back into the living room with a towel and some carpet cleaning spray, because he’s like that. She takes the spray from his hand so she can pull him in for a proper kiss.

“They’re never gonna shut up about this, are they?” Bellamy murmurs against her lips.

“Nah, but I think it’s worth it,” Clarke replies.

And she’s right. It is.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations:  
> Idiota - idiot  
> Tais-toi, grand-mere - shut up, grandma  
> Mahal - darling, love
> 
> Any mistranslations are mine. Please let me know if I've messed up!


End file.
